"As president, I'll take on the issue of the cost of healthcare," Harris said during an address about her economic plans in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday.
The Harris healthcare plans largely build on efforts President Joe Biden has undertaken through initiatives such as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which enlarged the tax credits available on the health insurance exchanges and authorized the Health and Human Services Department to negotiate pharmaceutical prices under Medicare Part D.
The Democratic presidential nominee highlighted Medicare drug price negotiations, which HHS said Thursday would save up to 79% on 10 of the most expensive and commonly prescribed drugs for enrollees starting in 2026, and proposed expanding it to include more medications. The law already dictates that Medicare will negotiate rates for twice as many medicines over the next two years. Harris did not specify how she intends to accelerate this program.
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The Inflation Reduction Act also limits insulin costs to $35 a month and out-of-pocket costs to $2,000 a year for Medicare beneficiaries. Echoing Biden's plan, Harris proposed to extend those caps to everyone, which would require legislation.
"I pledge to continue this progress," Harris said. "I'll lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone with your support, not only our seniors, and demand transparency from the middlemen who operate between Big Pharma and the insurance companies, who use opaque practices to raise your drug prices and profit off your need for medicine."
The Harris plan would "increase competition and demand transparency in the healthcare industry, starting by cracking down on pharmaceutical companies who block competition and abusive practices by pharmaceutical middlemen who squeeze small pharmacies’ profits and raise costs for consumers," according to a news release.
That would complement work underway at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department, which are investigating PBMs and pharmaceutical company tactics to block generic competition. Harris' positions also may overlap with bipartisan legislation on Capitol Hill to rein in PBMs.
Harris wants to maintain the enhanced health insurance exchange tax credit subsidies Biden enacted through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and extended through the Inflation Reduction Act, which are due to expire at the end of 2025. This more generous financial assistance, initially created for COVID-19 relief, drove exchange enrollment over 21 million, a record high, during the open enrollment period for 2024. Congress would have to authorize extending these subsidies or they will revert to their original levels.
"As for Donald Trump, well, he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act," Harris said of her Republican opponent, the former president. "That would take us back to a time when insurance companies could deny people with preexisting conditions. We all remember what that was, and we're not going back."
Part of Harris's portfolio as vice president has been a focus on medical debt, which she touted in her speech. According to the White House, the Biden administration erased $7 billion of medical debt for an estimated 3 million Americans using money from the American Rescue Plan Act.
Harris proposes to broaden another Biden-era approach to medical debt, modeled on a North Carolina program the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved last month, under which the federal government and states work with hospitals to forgive debts.
The vice president and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced a proposed rule in June that would bar credit ratings agencies from including medical debt on credit reports. Last year, Experian, TransUnion and Equifax announced they would no longer factor paid medical collections or medical debts below $500 into credit scores.
The Harris campaign plans to stage 20 events in swing states to promote her platform, with a focus on the Inflation Reduction Act — which marked its second anniversary Friday — and healthcare provisions including Medicare drug price negotiations. The Democratic National Convention opens in Chicago on Monday.
Trump has not articulated a health policy agenda. His campaign described Harris' economic proposals as "full Communist" in a news release Friday.
